Nevborn – Daidalos

I have a weird relationship with progessive as a genre, or if I am to be brutally honest, I have certain issues with it. Either by itself, or in combination with other genres, my reaction is usually a negative one. More often than not it seems pompous and arrogant, more like showing off the band’s skills than caring about how it sounds to the common listener. Maybe I can’t appreciate because I am not a musician or I might just prefer completely different sound styles, but the bottom line remains the same, progressive usually bores me. After all for me, as a listener, the end result of a song is more important than the technical skill of the musicians producing it. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t any great progressive bands or songs, it’s just that, usually, it’s not my cup of tea.

One of those exceptions is the band Nevborn with their EP “Daidalos”. This release is basically a 18 and a half minutes long song, based on the ancient greek myth of Daidalos and Icaros. To be precise, it’s a dialogue between father and son, during their captivity in a maze. There are other implications in this dialogue though, hidden beyong the lyrics. One can say that we see the eternal battle between different generations, with the son wanting to rebel against the current status quo (in the guise of the gods) and dreaming of going beyong the limits that previous generations has set, while his father is loyal to the old values. The end of their story is, I believe, well known.

As for the music itself Nevborn manage to be interesting during every single minute of the song, an achievement if we consider how long the track is. Their sound changes at the right moments, creating the impression that the listener is not just listening a song but observes a metal musical play. The combination between different vocals (alternating between clean and brutal) manages to emphasize the feelings behind the lyrics, with the music following accordingly. Each one prepares us for the other, creating a worthwhile result. Merging progressive with post metal is apparently something quite interesting, at least in the case of Nevborn, with pros from each genre fixing the cons (or what I consider cons) of the other.